


shall we stick by each other as long as we live?

by awkwardspiritanimals



Series: i give you myself before preaching or law [2]
Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: F/M, I turned the sap up to eleven and broke the knob off, and one panic attack related to that past abuse, at least I hope that's what it does, several mentions and discussions of past canonical child abuse, there's also two cats, very much both focuses on Liv and Rafa and Noah, while also being a big ensemble fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 09:03:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17241410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awkwardspiritanimals/pseuds/awkwardspiritanimals
Summary: “So Rita Calhoun proposed to me this afternoon.”Rafael thinks he does an admirable job of keeping any expression except for vague curiosity off his face, but it’s so much harder with Olivia than with anyone else.“What did you say?”Olivia shrugs. “Told her I’d think about it.”(Rafael Barba realizes he doesn’t want a perfect moment. He just wants to be married to Olivia Benson. Featuring a proposal, a job offer, a car accident, a panic attack, multiple deep and emotional conversations-- some of which are about fathers and sons, and some of which are not--, a paper ring, a family heirloom, and a wedding. It does not at any point feature a plan.)





	shall we stick by each other as long as we live?

**Author's Note:**

> It happened again, and I still don’t know what I’m doing, but this one is only 20k. Sequel to 'even stars fight their own gravity,' and while I suppose you could read it without first reading that, there’s so much that I think you wouldn't understand that I might as well have written this in gibberish. Title from “Song of the Open Road” by Walt Whitman.
> 
> Warning for several discussions and mentions of canonical past child abuse, and for one panic attack related to that past child abuse.

“So Rita Calhoun proposed to me this afternoon.”

Rafael thinks he does an admirable job of keeping any expression except for vague curiosity off his face, but it’s so much harder with Olivia than with anyone else.

“What did you say?”

Olivia shrugs. “Told her I’d think about it.”

\-------------

_RB: What is it that you think you’re doing?_

_RC: Not being a fucking coward, which makes one of us._

_RC: I’m thinking a June wedding, and then Europe for the honeymoon._

_RC: You’ll need to decide who you’re standing up with._

_RB: There’s a process to these things. I can’t just ask without having a plan._

_RC: You’re always going on about ‘the process.’_

_RC: You were in love with her for half a decade, slept in her bed for two weeks after you got your ass kicked, and still couldn’t figure out what to do about any of it until she stuck her tongue down your throat._

_RC: What exactly is your fucking process?_

_RB: I hate you._

_RC: You’re just saying that because I proposed marriage to the love of your life._

\-------------

“Is Ms. Rita going to move in with us?” Noah asks, and Olivia looks up from the folder of reports she’s reviewing while he plays with his blocks.

“Why do you ask that?”

“At lunch you said she asked you to marry her, and people who are married live together.”

Olivia laughs. “Oh, sweet boy, that was just a joke. Ms. Rita was just teasing Uncle Rafa.” The smallest hint of panic on his face had been extremely amusing.

“Oh.” She’s pretty sure that Noah is confused by Rafael and Rita’s friendship, which is fair. She doesn’t think there’s anyone who really understands the whole of it outside of Rafael, Rita, and Devine Awaziem. He stacks a few more blocks, then looks up at her again. “Are you going to marry Uncle Rafa?”

Trust her son to beat her to the conversation she’s been trying to figure out for weeks now. She’s suddenly very glad that Rafael had meetings this afternoon so it’s just the two of them in the apartment, because she doesn’t think that his presence would have stopped Noah from asking. Olivia closes the folder, setting it aside so she can lean forward, elbows on her knees.

“Would that be alright with you?”

Noah tilts his head, considering. “Does that mean that Juez and Bella would be my cats too?” Arabella, sprawled out next to Olivia on the couch, lifts her head and meows at the mention of her name.

Olivia laughs again. “Yes, I think Uncle Rafa would be willing to share.”

“Okay. I think you should get married then.”

“That’s all you want to ask about? It’s okay if you have more questions.”

More head tilting. “If you and Uncle Rafa got married, that means he would have to stay, right? And he’d live with us forever?”

“Oh, honey,” she says, reaching out to smooth down his curls, “You know Uncle Rafa’s not going to leave again, right? Not like he did before.”

“I know. He told me. But… getting married is like a promise, right? And Uncle Rafa always keeps his promises.”

“Yeah, he does.” He hadn’t promised not to leave, but he had promised to come back, and he’d told her about the stars, and all of those things were important.

“Then I think you should get married, so we can all promise each other not to leave.”

Olivia smiles, and shifts her folder so she can lean down and press a kiss against his head.

“Alright then. I guess Uncle Rafa and I will have to get to work on that.”

\-------------

It’s not that he doesn’t want to propose to her. In fact, moments in which he wants to propose to her are beginning to outnumber the moments where he’s not thinking about it.

There had been that time two weeks ago, when he’d woken up before his alarm and it had felt like she was his entire world, warm and soft and sliding her hand down his stomach with intent. Or last month, when Noah had taken two handfuls of dish soap and slicked his hair back and up so he could “look like Uncle Rafa,” and then gleefully resisted their attempts to convince him to take a bath for at least a half hour; Olivia had been trying to blame him for being a bad influence on her son, but she’d been laughing too hard to actually get the words out, and he had wanted exactly that to last forever, Noah beaming with pride at his handiwork and Olivia laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe. There had been a few days once where he’d decided that maybe Rita had a point and the right moment would happen spontaneously, so he’d taken to carrying his abuelita’s ring around in his pocket, except three days after he’d started that she’d _sneezed_ and he’d almost dropped to one knee, so the ring had gone back to his apartment to keep him from doing anything truly insane.

He’s not scared, no matter what Rita or his mother or two-thirds of Olivia’s squad says, at least not in the way they mean. They’ve talked about it, he and Olivia, getting married, _being married_ , and have agreed that it’s something they want, and he’d told her that he wanted to spend his life with her thirty seconds _before_ she’d kissed him for the first time, so it’s not like she is unclear on his intentions. There’s not one thing in the world he wants more than to be married to Olivia Benson, and that’s part of why he wants so badly to get this _right_.

So much about them, their whole relationship, romance and friendship and work, has been unconventional, and he wouldn’t change a second of it, not anything that happened between the two of them, but he’d really like if this one thing, this one big and important and very, very good thing, could be conventional, if he could have a plan and execute it.

Rafael just needs to figure out said plan, and not propose to Olivia every time she smiles at him until then.

\----------------

“Are you really enjoying this job?” Carisi asks, taking a bite of his sandwich.

Rafael had meetings in Manhattan all day, so he’d agreed to meet Carisi for lunch, which he only regrets a little. He looks up from his notes with a sigh.

“It’s fine. And stable, at least for a few more months.”

“Yeah, but are you having any fun?”

“Not everything has to be fun.”

The job consulting with the DA’s office, advising ADAs on how to improve their communication with their detectives so that both groups could get more of what they needed to close cases and get convictions, really is fine. Some days, like today, when he doesn’t have to deal with anyone who resents his being there and a couple of the lawyers he’s spent the past few days observing actually ask for his advice, it could even be called good. Six years ago, before Dominick Carisi and Tommy Zhang and Olivia Benson, he would have considered it an unbearable torture designed to cause him specifically as much professional misery as possible, but now it’s not so bad, and certainly not any worse than any of the other temporary jobs he’s worked since he resigned.

Although it’s not any better either, and it stings sometimes, to be so close to the only job he’d ever really _wanted_ in his life, from the time he understood what it was, and so far away at the same time. But he’d given it up, to keep the thousand pieces he’d felt shattered into after the Householders from scattering apart to such a degree that he’d never have been able to put them back together again, and now he’s pretty sure he’s further away from it than he’d ever been as a little kid in the Bronx.

He’s almost fifty years old, and it’s probably far past time to leave behind the little part of him that read too many books as a kid and has always thought of being an ADA as his destiny. Rafael has plenty of amazing things in his life that he never could have imagined even wanting when he was a kid, much less having, with being allowed such a prominent place in Olivia and Noah’s lives right at the top of the list. He doesn’t need a crusade anymore, just a job, and if he misses the one he’d had, that’s his own fault.

“Not everything has to be fun,” he repeats when Carisi makes a disbelieving sound.

“Yeah, but don’t you think- You know what, nevermind. You get in touch with that professor at Fordham I gave your name to?”

“Yes. Mostly because I knew you’d continue to bother me about it if I didn’t.”

“Just thought you might enjoy it,” he says, and then rolls his eyes when Rafael opens his mouth, “Yeah, yeah, not everything has to be fun. I also thought you’d be good at it.”

“Me with children?”

“They’re college students, Barba, not preschoolers. Besides, you’re not the big bad blustering prosecutor anymore. You’re good with Tommy.”

“Tommy is… Tommy. There’s family stuff there, and he’s a good kid. But he’s just one kid.”

“You helped me out.”

“Like I had much of a choice.”

“You’re great with Noah.”

“Noah’s my- Noah is six. He doesn’t ask annoying questions about torts,” he says, hoping that Carisi didn’t notice his slip, or at least doesn’t mention it. He’s not even ready to have that conversation with himself, much less anyone else.

“Well, like I said, I think you’d be good at it.”

“You can stop trying to sell me, Carisi, I already called her. We set up a meeting. If they offer me an interview, I’ll go.”

“Just trying to look out for you, Counselor.”

“You and everyone else, even though I’m perfectly capable of doing it for myself,” Rafael huffs, and for a few seconds Carisi looks like he’s going to say something, but instead he just shrugs and goes back to his sandwich. They eat in silence for a while until Rafael sighs. “Sorry. I do appreciate it.”

Carisi’s answering smile is so pleased it’s almost smug.

\------------

Olivia really likes the sight of him in her bed. It’s not lust-- alright, it’s not all lust, and she doesn’t think she can be blamed for wanting to press her mouth against the skin next to his hip bone exposed where his t-shirt has ridden up and leave her mark there--, it’s just that he can’t really be any more present in her life than this, warm skin and messy hair and a Harvard t-shirt that looks like he’s had it since he was enrolled there, sprawled out on top of her comforter with his laptop open on his chest.

“You’re staring,” Rafael says, eyes flicking away from the screen for a moment to where she’s standing in the doorway.

“You mind?” She moves into the room, retrieving pajamas from her dresser.

“It’s distracting.”

“Well, I’ll get out of your way then,” she says, going into the bathroom to change. When she comes back, he’s still reading whatever it is he has open on his laptop, and she settles next to him on the bed, sliding her hand up underneath his t-shirt to rest against his chest, fingertips brushing his crucifix. “What are you working on?”

“I’ve got a meeting Thursday with that professor at Fordham that Carisi put me in contact with. I want to be ready.”

“Is that something you think you’d want to do? Teach?”

He shrugs. “Carisi thinks I’d be good at it.”

“Carisi thinks you can do anything.”

“And you?”

“I just want you to be happy.”

“I am happy, Liv,” he says, shifting to press a kiss against her hair.

She knows he means it, that he’s happy here with her and Noah, but she wants more than that for him, wants him lit up and passionate about his work the way he used to be. Whenever he talks about any of the jobs he’s considering, he only ever sounds like he’s checking off a box, like he’s going through the motions of what he thinks he should be doing now. It’s better than last winter, when she’d occasionally been genuinely worried about him, and certainly better than last February when he’d taken off for Arizona in the aftermath of the trial, but still.

She doesn’t want to say anything though, not until she’s figured out exactly what to say so that he doesn’t misunderstand and think that she is anything less than completely overjoyed to have him here in her apartment with her and her son.

“Liv,” Rafa says, pulling her out of her thoughts, “Everything alright?”

“Yeah. Just thinking,” she says, and his soft smile transforms into a comically exaggerated leer down the length of her body. Olivia laughs, pinching at the skin just below his crucifix. He hisses but doesn’t move away from her.

“Hey, you started it.”

“How so?”

“You were the one staring at me in the first place.”

She laughs again, and shifts to press a kiss against his jaw. “I love you.” She rolls away from him to grab her book from her nightstand, and when she turns back he’s still watching her.

“What’s wrong?”

“That’s your response to _I love you_?”

“Liv-”

“Everything is fine.” She gives in to the urge to rub her thumb against the still exposed jut of his hip bone. “Right here, right now, everything is perfect,” she says, meaning it entirely if very specifically, and Rafael has a look on his face that has become familiar to her over the past two months or so, although she hasn’t been able to figure out what exactly it means.

“I love you too,” he says after a few seconds, kissing her hair again, and she settles back against his side, flipping open her book as he goes back to his computer screen, one hand resting over where she still has hers on his hip.

\---------------

“Momma, it’s raining!”

“I know, sweet boy, I was just out in it,” she laughs, hanging up her coat.

Noah and Rafael are over by the windows, Rafael with one knee wedged up against the wall so that he can lift him up enough to see out better. Juez is perched in the windowsill next to them, and Arabella is in her favorite spot on the kitchen counter, watching the proceedings.

“Uncle Rafa was teaching me about peter- petre- what’s it called again?” Noah tilts his head back against Rafael’s chest to look up at him.

“Petrichor,” he says, setting him down so he can cross the room and hug Olivia.

“Yeah! That’s why the rain smells like it does, because it makes special stuff come out of the ground. Uncle Rafa says it’s really strong in Arizona because it doesn’t rain there very often. Maybe it will rain when we go visit and we can smell it!”

“When we go visit, hmm?” she asks, glancing over at Rafael, who has scooped Juez up off the windowsill.

“Uncle Rafa said that next time he goes to Arizona, you and I can go with him so that we can see Mr. Awazoom and all the animals and the peter-core.”

“That sounds very exciting. For now, why don’t you go wash your hands so you can help us with dinner?”

Rafael still has Juez cradled against his chest as he crosses the room to kiss her hello, and she wonders if he realizes the way he uses his cats as a defense mechanism when he’s nervous now, one more layer between his heart and the world.

“Devine called earlier to check in, and they must have talked for thirty minutes.” She’s not surprised; Devine had visited for a week in January and her son and Rafael’s old friend had gotten along like a house on fire.

“And that’s when the trip to Arizona came up?”

“I think that’s been on the books for months, actually,” he says, and she raises her eyebrows as she pulls out the big pot they use for spaghetti, “After my attack, he was worried I was going to leave again. I told him I wasn’t going anywhere, and that the next time I went to Arizona you guys could come with. I didn’t realize he’d all but actually marked it on the calendar.”

“Oh.” Olivia isn’t sure what else to say, since she’d been worried about the same thing, no matter how many times she’d told herself she was being ridiculous. It was a big part of the reason she’d been so insistent that he stay with them; she really had thought it was the best and most efficient way to keep him safe, but she’d also wanted to be able to keep an eye on him, keep ahold of him, in case he tried to bolt again. He’d done the best thing for himself when he’d left, but she’d be damned if she let him go again without actually talking to her about it.

“Liv,” he says softly, and she realizes her face must have given her away. She’s been doing better about it lately, but it still catches her with her guard down sometimes, the heavy dread edged in panic landing squarely in her gut when he talks about those months when so much of him was gone from her, when she couldn’t help worrying that she might not ever get him back in all the ways she wanted him. He settles against the counter next to her as she turns to fill the pot with water, waiting until she shuts the tap off before he speaks again.

“Do you remember that night I called you in April? About the stars?” he asks, and she nods, “That’s what I was thinking of when I told him you guys should come with me if I ever went back. That night, and how happy I was to hear your voice. All I could think about was how glad I was to talk to you, and how much I wanted to bring you both with me so I could show you the stars. It was,” he says, his voice catching, and Olivia sets the pot down in the sink so she can fit her hand against the curve of his cheek instead, “It was the first time in months that it felt like that was something I could have.”

“What?”

“A place with you and Noah, if you’d have me. However you’d have me.”

“I think we can figure something out,” she says, sliding her hand around his neck to pull him closer, and there’s that look again, soft and open and bright as he rests his forehead against hers.

“Liv-”

“Momma, can I put the spaghetti in?” Noah says, running back from the bathroom, and Rafael sighs as he pulls away, but he’s smiling.

“Got to get the water boiling first, buddy, and then you can help me,” he says, retrieving the full pot from the sink so he can transfer it to the stove, and Olivia leans back against the counter, watching him occupy his place in her world.

\--------------

“What was Devine checking in on?”

“Hmm?” He rests a hand on top of the one she has on his chest, pushed up under his shirt. Olivia likes to insinuate her hands between him and his clothing pretty much whenever she gets the chance, not that he’s complaining.

“Earlier you said that Devine called to check in. What was he checking in on?”

“Oh. Nothing specific.” If she wasn’t half asleep, he’s pretty sure that she would catch his lie, but as it is she just presses closer against his side, hooking one ankle over both of his. He tightens his own arm around her and ducks his head so her can whisper against her hair. “I’m here, Liv.”

She doesn’t reply, but she does shift so that her foot is between his instead of across his shins.

He’s mostly glad that Noah had interrupted his spontaneous near proposal in the kitchen, but he regrets that he still hasn’t managed to make this particular promise to Olivia, hasn’t chased away the slivers of doubt he sometimes sees in her eyes. Rafael wants her to know that, whatever happens, he’s all-in when it comes to _them_.

He presses a kiss against her hair, thumb rubbing back and forth across the curve of her finger underneath his shirt.

\---------------

_RB: Noah wants to come for a visit sometime._

_DA: Noah is always welcome here, as is his lovely mother._

_DA: You, on the other hand, are banned until you get your shit together._

_RB: I’m working on it._

_DA: I would say ‘work harder,’ but I think you actually need to try less. Take a few deep breaths and just go for it._

_RB: I don’t understand why you’re always on Rita’s side._

_DA: I’m on Rita’s side when she’s right. Which she is in this case._

_DA: Also because she’s scarier than you are. I’ve known you long enough to know you’re all soft and squishy on the inside._

_RB: Both of you are the opposite of helpful._

_RB: I need new friends._

_DA: You need to get your act together._

\-------------

“You’re late, lǜshī,” Tommy says, and Rafael fights the urge to run his hand through his hair. He has more meetings later, and he needs to look more put together than he currently feels.

“Sorry. Sorry, my meeting went longer than I thought it would. Sorry.”

“It’s five minutes. Not really worth three sorries.”

“Sor-” he starts, but cuts himself off when Tommy laughs, “Alright. Point taken.”

He really does feel bad, even if it’s only five minutes. He and Tommy haven’t had as much time to meet lately, between work and school, especially since Rafael doesn’t really live across the landing anymore. Tommy has probably spent more time in his apartment recently than he has, since he’d kept the key he’d gotten when he was feeding Juez and Arabella in the immediate aftermath of Rafael’s attack and sometimes he takes refuge from his younger siblings there.

“What’s up?” Tommy asks, taking a drink of his soda, which is an alarming shade of green. “Did Ms. Calhoun finally threaten physical violence if you don’t propose to Olivia soon?”

“She did that weeks ago. No, I, uh, got a job offer.”

“You’ve gotten lots of job offers. You’re extremely in demand.”

It’s Rafael’s turn to laugh. “I don’t know about _extremely_. But this one is… unexpected.”

“Good unexpected or bad unexpected?”

“I… don’t know.” His main thought right now is that Jack McCoy really can’t seem to resist the urge to grab his life and shake it like a snow globe at any opportunity.

Tommy considers this while he takes another drink of his soda. “Do they need an answer by this afternoon?”

“No. They told me to take my time.”

“Then don’t worry about it right now. Talk to Olivia about it when you get home, she’s smarter than you anyway.”

“I miss the blind hero worship.”

He grins. “You know you’re still my favorite. And you agree with me anyway.”

“I’m not sure she’ll have any idea what to do about this either.” He’s not sure he can even actually talk to her about it; just thinking about it now causes uncertainty and joy and terror to well up in his chest.

“You’ll figure it out together,” Tommy says, with all the assurance of being eighteen, and Rafael remembers that. Everywhere he’s gone, everything he’s done, everything and everyone he has now, and he’s really not all that far away from that kid apparently, because here he is again, sitting in the Bronx, terrified and wanting.

But Tommy is right when he says he doesn’t have to figure it out right now, even if he thought he could, so he gets his regular order and helps Tommy sort through the papers he’d brought with him.

\-------------

It’s almost two in the morning, and she can just see the light from the television through the crack at the bottom of the door. She sighs, debating whether or not she should get up and see if he wants to talk about it, or try to go back to sleep until he comes back and she’s actually able to.

Rafael is hunched over on the couch, reading his book by the light the television is giving off.

“Don’t you know that’s bad for your eyes?”

“Don’t you know that’s a myth?” he replies, but he closes the book when she settles next to him. “Sorry if I woke you up.”

Olivia shakes her head, rubbing at the soft hair at his nape with her fingertips. “Just gotten used to you being there.”

His nightmares have gotten significantly less frequent and intense in the months since he’d unofficially moved in, but he still doesn’t like to talk about them much. It leaves him feeling raw and vulnerable in a way that she knows he hates, even with her, but he usually comes around to it eventually on his own. Pushing or prodding from her works sometimes, but more often than not he clams up even more, and she’s found it’s generally best to let him come to it on his own. He always gets there eventually.

After a few minutes, Rafael relaxes against her side with a sigh.

“It was my father,” he says softly, and she shifts so she can thread her fingers through his.

“The stairway?”

He shakes his head. “Courtroom. I was-” He lets out a shaky breath, and she squeezes his hand. “I was going over my notes, and I looked up and there he was, in the second row of the jury box, sneering at me. And then someone was knocking at the courtroom doors, and he was yelling at me to stop being a coward and open them. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t say anything, and he kept yelling, and they kept knocking.” He shrugs. “Then I woke up. Didn’t really seem worth waking you up over.”

“I don’t mind,” she says, and he twists enough to press a soft kiss against her collarbone.

“I know. I just…” He trails off, and she wonders if there’s something else bothering him, something that had inspired this particular nightmare. She’s familiar with his recurring ones by now, and this isn’t one of them.

But his breathing is starting to go slow and deep where he still has his head tucked against her shoulder, and she decides that anything more can wait until morning. After all, this time he’d only run as far as her couch.

“Come back to bed?” she says, and he nods but doesn’t actually move, “Rafa, neither of us wants to sleep out here.”

“Might not be so bad.”

“I think you’re confusing my couch with Rita’s.”

He grumbles, but shifts so that she can stand and help him up after her. Once he’s on his feet, he wraps his arms around her waist and leans into her a bit.

“Thank you, Liv.”

\------------

Twenty-three stitches, he’d told her that night when he’d recounted the incident with his father, but it still surprises her how large the scar across his lower back is whenever she catches sight of it. She’d been enjoying watching him walk around their room in just a pair of pajama pants slung low on his hips, hair still damp and messy from his shower, but then he’d turned to grab something from the closet and her eyes had caught on it, pink against his skin.

“Liv?” Rafael says, and she realizes he’s moved to stand in front of where she’s sitting at the end of the bed while she’s continued to stare at the closet, “You alright?”

“I’m great,” she replies, smiling up at him. Olivia doesn’t want to dwell on her thoughts, and she knows that if he knew what she was thinking about, he wouldn’t either. She slides her hands along the warm skin of his hips so she can gently tug him forward to stand between her knees. “Thinking about how good it is to be here with you in this moment, Rafael Barba.”

He grins. “I believe that’s my line.”

“It’s a good line. Definitely worth stealing.” She stretches a bit to meet him as he bends down to kiss her. “I’m glad that of all the places you could be right now, you’re here with me.”

“Nowhere I’d rather be.” Rafael catches her jaw between his palms as he leans forward again. “I could make it really good to be here with me right now.”

Olivia laughs against his mouth. “Now that’s a terrible line.”

“It’s still going to work though, isn’t it?”

In response, she falls backwards onto the bed, pulling him with her.

\------------

“That job nearly killed you, Rafi.”

“Mami-”

“No, don’t you dare say I’m being dramatic. That job made you miserable a long time before you nearly threw your whole life away and spent three days facedown on my couch. Not to mention months in Arizona, and months after that putting your life right when you finally got back to the city.”

“I loved that job, Mami. And I did a lot of good.”

“Of course you did. But you’re smart, you work hard. There’s a hundred other jobs where you could do just as much good. What does Olivia think?”

“I haven’t told her about the offer yet.” He hadn’t meant to tell anyone yet, but his mother was significantly less likely to let it go if she thought something was bothering him and he wasn’t telling her about it than Olivia was. “I haven’t figured out how to.”

“Oh, mijo,” his mother sighs, “She loves you. She wants you to be happy.”

“What if this job is one of the things that would make me happy?”

“What if it makes you miserable?” Another sigh. “You can’t run away again, not if you’re going to ask her to marry you.”

“I know that. Last February was…” he starts, then shakes his head. He doesn’t know how to explain that it was one thing and a thousand things at the same time, connected and yet totally separate all at once, a perfect and terrible storm that had hollowed him out and pressed on all his weak spots until they’d cracked. Even if he could actually put it into words for himself, he still couldn’t explain it to his mother; they talk about almost everything, but they never, ever talk about his father. “It won’t be like that again.”

“You can’t know that.”

“I can, because I promised Noah and Liv. No matter what happens, I’m not running again.”

His mother regards him critically for a few seconds, and then sighs yet again.

“You have to promise me that you’ll really think about it before you decide anything. And that you’ll talk to Olivia. And that the second someone so much as looks at you funny, you’ll tell someone.”

“That’s a lot of promises, Mami.”

“I’m your mother, I’m allowed.”

\------------

“When were you going to tell me?”

He closes his book slowly, and she can tell he’s taking a few seconds to steel himself before he looks up at her. She tries not to make it look too much like she’s attempting to block his only exit route, leaning against the door jamb and crossing her arms.

“I don’t think my mother would sell me out quite so easily, so it must have been Jack.”

“He didn’t realize you hadn’t told me yet.” It’s not an accusation, at least for the most part. It stings that she’d found out from someone else, but she knows better than anyone the sort of loop this must have thrown him for.

She sits next to him on the bed, letting her head lean against his shoulder and laying her hand over his where it’s resting on his stomach, smiling when he intertwines their fingers.

“You know this is the only job I’ve ever really wanted in my whole life? Eighteen-year-old me would be baffled that I’m having trouble deciding what to do.”

“Eighteen-year-old you was young,” she says, and that at least gets a laugh from him, even if it is short and soft, “You really never wanted to be anything else? Even when you were a little kid?”

“Maybe. I don’t remember anything specific. When I was little, all I remember is wanting to be anywhere except where I was,” he says, and her hand tightens over his, “Sorry. That’s probably dramatic. It wasn’t all bad.”

“No, I remember that.” Olivia’s relationship with her mother wasn’t the same as Rafael’s with his father, but that particular feeling is familiar enough.

“Then when I got older, I just wanted to be able to stop him. First time I got between him and Mami, I was eight, and he pretty much backhanded me across the entire room. Even when I got big enough that I could keep my feet when he hit me, it only ever bought us a few days, maybe a week. So when I found out what a prosecutor was, what they did, that was it. Maybe I couldn’t stop my father, but I could stop people like him. Plus, as you’re well aware, I really enjoy a good argument.”

“I’d noticed.”

“I like to do plenty of things with you that aren’t arguing.”

“Noticed that too,” she says, shifting even closer against his side. “This is all I wanted when you were gone, you know that, right? It’s not that I didn’t miss you at work, because I did. I do, but… when you were in Arizona, all I wanted was for you to be here and happy, with me and Noah and everyone else who loves you. No qualifications. No extra requirements. And I swear to God, Barba, if you make yourself miserable by taking this job because of some misplaced sense of guilt about leaving me behind or whatever, I’ll figure out a way to get you fired myself.”

The offer isn’t to work with Manhattan SVU, and it can’t be, not with how they are now, but she needs him to understand. That anything that needed to be forgiven was, a long time ago. That it mattered that he left, but it was a lot more important that he’d come back. How highly she thinks of him, how privileged she feels to be here with him, this man and his good heart.

Rafael laughs again, a real one this time. “If it was as easy as you letting me off the hook, I’d call Jack McCoy right now and turn him down. But…”

“But there’s eighteen-year-old Rafa, who only ever wanted to be a prosecutor.”

“Yeah. And the ghost of him in Tommy Zhang. And there’s forty-one-year-old Rafael Barba too.”

“He wanted to be a prosecutor?”

“He wanted to be a good prosecutor. This lieutenant crashed into his life and made him see all kinds of colors.”

“I was only a detective when we met.”

“Officially maybe. Cragen may have been the commanding officer still, but the squad was already yours, Liv. And you made me want to be a good prosecutor, instead of just a winning one. It wasn’t the first time I wanted that, but it was the most I’d ever wanted it. And I’m not sure I can handle feeling like that again, but I’m equally unsure that I can say no to it.

“But whatever job I take, however it turns out, I’m here with you and Noah, and that means I’m happy. And I’m not going anywhere, not unless you both come with me, and-”

She knows she should let him talk. He loves to talk in general, but only rarely about things like this, and she knows she’ll be frustrated with herself the next time he curls inwards on himself and will only half talk to her, but she can’t resist the urge to twist towards him and press her mouth against his. Olivia spent the better part of six years wanting to kiss him sometimes, usually idly and occasionally intently, and now that she has permission to do it, she really doesn’t see the point in not doing it when she wants to, especially when they’re alone in their bedroom. Rafael doesn’t seem to mind.

“Noah’s having dinner at his friend’s house,” she says, shifting to kiss down the column of his throat. His hands have pulled her shirt loose at the back and slipped underneath, fingers spread wide, palms warm against her skin. “We’ve got a few free hours to kill.”

He smirks. “So you think we should have the important grown-up conversation about my future employment while we’ve got the apartment to ourselves. Makes sen-”

She cuts him off again.

\-------------

“What are you working on, buddy?”

Olivia had texted that she wouldn’t be home until late, so it was just Rafael and Noah for the night. They’d made dinner and then Rafael had helped Noah with his spelling list. He’d said that was his only homework, but even after he’d finished with it, he’d remained bent over something on the coffee table while Rafael worked on his laptop at the kitchen counter.

“Makin’ rings.”

“What?” He closes his laptop and moves to lean over the back of the couch, where he can finally see Noah’s crayons and the collection of multicolored paper rings scattered across the table. “Where’d you learn to make those?”

“My friend Jenna,” Noah says, tipping his head back against the couch, “She knows how to make all kinds of animals, but she hasn’t shown me how to do those yet.” He bends forward again, searching through the pile for a few moments before carefully selecting one, holding it between thumb and forefinger. “I made this one for you, to match your tie.”

He’s colored the band of the ring light blue and the square knob on the top bright orange, and it does match the tie Rafael had been wearing that day. Noah beams when he slips it onto his finger, and Rafael can’t help grinning back.

“How about you make a couple more, and then it’s probably time for a bath and bed, yeah?” he says, sticking the ring into his pocket. Noah nods and turns back to his work, and Rafael goes back to his own, still smiling.

\----------------

It wasn’t really all that long ago that his phone ringing in the middle of the night would be an annoyance but not necessarily a cause for alarm, so he doesn’t even lift his head off his pillow as he fumbles for it on the nightstand. As he comes further awake though, he realizes that no one calls him to beg for warrants anymore, and he scrambles upright to answer Carisi’s call.

“What happened?”

“Barba, I need you to stay calm. Lieu gave me very specific instructions about telling you to stay calm.”

“Carisi, tell me what the fuck happened.”

“You’re not doing so great with the stayin-”

“Carisi!” He traps the phone between his ear and his shoulder so he can tug on the jeans he was wearing earlier.

“Lieu and Fin were in pursuit of a suspect, and some idiot wasn’t paying attention at an intersection and caught the back end of their car. They’re pretty banged up, and the docs are holding Fin overnight for a concussion, but there’s nothing life threatening. Lieu would have called you herself, but she’s still finishing up with the doc and wanted you to know ASAP.”

“Okay. I’m going to get Noah up and we’ll be there as soon as we can.”

“Barba, are you sure you-”

“Yes. You and I both know that Liv won’t leave the hospital until Fin does, and I-” He cuts himself off, because he doesn’t actually need to say _I need to see her_ for Carisi to know what he means. “We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

“Alright. I’ll let her know.”

He tugs on a sweatshirt and stuffs his phone and wallet into his pockets before he goes to get Noah, and he’s in the doorway before he realizes that not one single thing in his entire life has prepared him for this moment. _She’s okay. She’s fine,_ he reminds himself as he perches carefully on the side of the bed, reaching out to smooth Noah’s hair back from his forehead, _All you’ve got to tell him is that his mom is alright and you’re going to go see her_. Rafael switches on the lamp next to the bed and Noah stirs, blinking against the sudden light.

“Uncle Rafa? Is it morning?” he asks, rubbing at his eyes, and Rafael forces himself to take a deep breath. _She’s fine. She’s alright. She needs you to do this. Noah needs you_. That last bit sharpens the edge of panic in his gut instead of easing it, but he forges ahead anyway.

“No, buddy, it’s still night, but we’ve got to go to the hospital to see your mom. She’s okay,” he says, reaching out to smooth his curls down again when Noah sits up, “She’s okay, but she can’t leave the hospital yet, so we’re going to go see her. Let’s get your coat and your shoes, yeah?”

Noah dozes against his side all through the taxi ride to the hospital, but he’s awake enough to walk into the building on his own, holding on to Rafael’s hand tightly. Carisi is waiting for them in the lobby, and he squats down to talk to Noah.

“Hey, big guy. Your mom’s going to be excited to see you.”

“Uncle Rafa says she’s okay but she had to stay at the hospital and that’s why we had to come see her.”

“Yeah, that’s right. She’s got some bruises, so you should probably be careful when you give her a big hug, alright?” Carisi says, and Noah nods, still holding on to Rafael’s hand.

He only lets go once he actually sees Olivia, who rises slowly from her chair next to Rollins when he starts to run down the hall towards her. Rafael barely resists the urge to do the same.

“Hey, sweetheart.”

“Uncle Rafa said you got hurt,” he says, leaning into her, and Olivia rests one hand on his head.

“I did, honey, but I’m alright. I’ll be able to come home with you in the morning, and in a few days I’ll be good as new.”

“Okay,” Noah says, looking back at Rafael and then shifting so he can look up at her, “Can I get a snack from the vending machine?”

That startles a laugh out of his mother. “Yeah, I think that would be okay.” She looks up at Rafael, who feels like he’s going to burst out of his skin if he doesn’t get to touch her soon, even though he knows that she’s fine. He’s got his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans in an attempt not to fidget too much, one hand playing with the little paper ring Noah had given him earlier.

“I’ll take him, Liv,” says Rollins, standing, and he barely holds in an audible sigh of relief, especially when Carisi adds, “Yeah, I’ll go with, help him choose.”

“Okay. Thanks. Nothing with too much sugar,” she says, and all three of them nod before setting off, and then it’s just the two of them in the hallway.

Rafael isn’t quite sure what he wants to say, except of course for the one thing he’s wanted to say for months.

“Sorry. We probably shouldn’t have come in the middle of the night like this. Carisi called and I just-”

“No, it’s good,” she says, stepping close to wrap her arms around his neck, and the relief that floods him is almost enough to buckle his knees as he hugs her back, “I wanted to see you guys.”

“You’re sure you’re okay?”

“Some bad bruises, and I don’t even want to think about how sore I’m going to be in the morning, but nothing other than that. Could have been a lot worse.”

“Mmmm.” Rafael unconsciously tightens his embrace. “Liv?”

“Yes?”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

“Okay. You have to let go of me.”

“Yeah?” He can hear the laughter in her voice, but she pulls back. “You think you’re going to need to be able to run away from me after you ask it?”

“No. Actually it’s mostly just a promise not to ever run away again. I’ve wanted to ask for months, but I wanted to do it right. I wanted to have the perfect plan, or at least I thought I did. But it turns out that all I really want is to be married to you.” Olivia gasps as he carefully sinks to one knee in front of her, slipping the paper ring out of his pocket. “I can get some of it right, at least, thanks to Noah. So what do you say, Olivia Benson? I love you. You’re my best friend. I can’t imagine any life except one spent with you and Noah. Marry me?”

Olivia is laughing and grinning and crying too, her voice thick as she says, “What, no poetry?”

 _"I give you my hand_ ,” he recites, reaching to take her left with the one of his not holding the ring, “ _I give you my love more precious than money, I give you myself before preaching or law. Will you give me yourself? Will you come travel with me? Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?_ ”

“Show off.”

“You asked. You want more?”

“No. I want to be married to you.”

“Yeah?” His grin is so wide his cheeks are starting to ache.

Olivia nods, and he slides Noah’s ring onto her finger before she curls her hands into the shoulder seams of his sweatshirt so she can haul him up to his feet and kiss him.

\-------------

Noah is curled up on Rafael’s lap, coat pillowed beneath his head, wearing Rafael’s sweatshirt so he can pull the hood down over his eyes to sleep. Olivia just stands for a few minutes, watching them, thumb pressing against the new ring on her finger, until Rafael, dozing with his head tilted against the wall, notices her and smiles sleepily.

“Hey,” she says, settling into the chair next to him, glad to be off her feet even if it’s only for a few minutes, “Fin is now threatening to shoot us all if we don’t leave already, and he’ll be released in a few hours anyway. I think we should probably get Noah home.”

Rafael shifts so he can pull Noah’s coat free and hand it to her, then again so that he’s holding Noah securely as he stands, the boy’s head against his shoulder. Noah stirs, turning to look at her without lifting his head.

“Hi, Momma. Is Uncle Fin feeling better?”

“He is, and he said that we should take you home to get some sleep, sweet boy,” she says, tucking a few errant curls back into the hood of Rafael’s sweatshirt, and she notices the way his eyes, even half closed, catch on the ring.

“Momma, you’re wearing the ring I made Uncle Rafa! Did he give it to you?”

“He did. He gave it to me when he asked me to marry him.”

“You’re gonna get married?”

“Yeah. That alright with you?” Rafael asks, and Noah nods, still not lifting his head.

“It’s good. Ms. Rita said if you didn’t ask Momma soon, I was gonna have to do it for you, and I don’t know how.”

Olivia laughs, even though it hurts, and Rafael glares at her, but she can see him fighting his own smile.

“Next time, you tell Ms. Rita to mind her own business,” he says, and Noah nods, snuggling deeper into both Rafael’s sweatshirt and his shoulder.

It’s a little after seven by the time they get home, and Olivia genuinely can’t remember the last time she was so tired. Rafael shoos her off to bed, promising to take Noah with him to run some errands and make him breakfast before letting him go back to bed, so he can’t sleep all day and they can try to salvage his sleep schedule as best they can. She collapses gratefully into bed after changing into pajamas and swallowing a couple ibuprofen, falling asleep with her right hand curled around her left to protect the little paper ring there that she can’t bear to take off.

The next thing she’s aware of is Rafael’s warm weight settling next to her. She moves towards him instinctively and then groans in pain.

“You need anything?” he asks, and she shakes her head.

“Just you.” It’s so nice to have him here, warm and solid, heartbeat steady beneath her cheek. “How’s Noah?”

“Sleeping now. I took him with me to my apartment and to get groceries, then we had pancakes. Once he almost ended up face down in a puddle of syrup, I thought it was best to let him nap. I was going to wake both of you up for lunch.”

“Why’d you go to your apartment?”

“Ah, well.” He shifts just enough to pull something out of his pocket, careful not to jostle her. It’s a small, square black box. “I didn’t have the whole plan, but I at least had this part.” Olivia reaches for the box and he lets her take it, so she can crack it open to reveal the silver ring inside. “It was mi abuelita’s. Her wedding ring. Abuelo only bought the one ring, and he thought that the one for the actual wedding was more important. So it’s not really a traditional engagement ring, and if you want something else, I can-”

She can’t shift enough to actually kiss him, but she turns her head and presses her mouth against his shoulder through his shirt.

“I couldn’t possibly want any other ring, Rafa. Besides, you’ve already given me two,” she says, sliding the paper ring off her finger so she can replace it with the silver one, which fits considerably better. The paper one is secured inside the box, because she doesn’t want to risk losing it.

“Mmmm. The proposal wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but,” he says, and she presses another kiss against his shoulder at the catch in his voice.

“I know. But I liked it. And I’m here now, and I’m fine. Just tired,” she says, and his answering grin is interrupted by a yawn, “I think the kid might have the right idea.”

“A nap? Wake up in time for a late lunch?” She nods, expecting him to get up and change out of his jeans, but he just sets an alarm on his phone and settles more comfortably next to her, hand resting over hers where she’s slipped it underneath his shirt.

Olivia’s awoken a little while later, not by the alarm but by Noah, still wearing Rafael’s sweatshirt, climbing up onto the bed next to her.

“Hey, sweet boy.”

“I had a nightmare.”

“Oh, no! Are you still tired?” Noah nods. “Why don’t you lie down with me and Uncle Rafa for a bit, and then we’ll eat lunch?” Another nod, and he settles down against her side.

“Love you, momma. Love you, Uncle Rafa.”

“Everything okay?” Rafael asks from her other side, still half-asleep and she shifts, despite the tiredness and the general aching of pretty much every part of her body, so that she can tuck her face in against his neck, press a kiss against the warm skin over his pulse point.

“Everything’s perfect.”

\-------------

The group text is currently called _Rafael Barba Is Disowned Until He Proposes._ He sends them a picture of Olivia’s hand with the ring, and the replies are almost instantaneous.

_RC: Holy fucking shit._

_RC: He actually did it._

_DA: I’ve never been prouder of anyone in my whole entire life._

_RB: Neither of you is invited to the wedding._

_DA: It’s precious that you think that’s enough to stop us._

_RC: You’re about thirty years too late in trying to get rid of us. You’re stuck with us, Barba._

\-----------------

Rafael hasn’t spent much time at the precinct in the months he’s been back. There’s too much there, good and bad, and showing up unannounced carries the risk of running into Peter Stone, who he’d pretty much be more than alright with avoiding for the rest of his life. But Olivia had mentioned that he was on vacation this week, and, after sleeping for a good portion of Saturday and taking Sunday off, she’s back at work today, so he’d been fighting the urge to check on her all morning. He knows she’s more than capable of taking care of herself, of knowing her own limits, but he still worries, and he doesn’t think he’s totally out of line in dropping by with lunch, to make sure she eats at least.

Fin is the only one in the squad room when he arrives, and the sergeant smiles at him as he enters.

“Counselor, I hear congratulations are in order. If you’re here for your fiancée, she and Carisi are out following up with a witness, but they should be back soon.”

He had figured that Olivia would tell her squad, and even if she hadn’t, they’re all trained detectives, and while his grandmother’s ring is not particularly austentatious, it’s also not particularly small. Rafael returns the other man’s smile, settling into the chair next to his desk.

“Thank you. Is this the part where you threaten to kill me if I ever hurt her?” he asks, half joking and half serious.

“Nah. First of all because Liv is plenty capable of handling things herself. But mostly because people hurt people sometimes. It’s what people do, even with people they love. Maybe especially with people they love. So unless it’s some heinous shit, it matters less how you hurt them and more the work you do to fix it. And you and Liv, for all your stuff, are pretty good at that bit.”

Rafael genuinely doesn’t know what to say to that, and he’s saved from having to actually reply by Rollins returning from the break room with a cup of coffee.

“I will kick your ass if you hurt her,” she says, grinning with as many teeth as she can manage, “And I fight dirty.”

“Noted.” He’s smiling despite himself. He’s been doing a lot of that, the past few days. “I’ve been wanting to- I wanted to say thank you. For… letting me back in like you did,” he says, struggling for a second on how to phrase what he wants to say, “You didn’t have to do that after everything that happened and the way I left, and I’m grateful that you did.”

“Yeah, well,” Rollins shrugs, “If Liv could figure out a way to forgive you, seemed like the rest of us could at least give it a try. Plus, as far as this unit’s coping mechanisms go, running off and hiding in the desert is actually pretty healthy, all things considered.”

“And if we stopped talking to everyone in this squad who made a stupid decision they hadn’t thought about enough, or one they’d thought about too much, we wouldn’t have many friends left, and we probably wouldn’t be working here anymore,” Fin adds.

Rafael wonders if the tremendous, heavy warmth blooming in his chest at the easy way they still consider him one of them shows on his face. Probably, because he used to be a lot better at hiding these things, before Olivia and Noah and the squad had come and kicked down so many of his walls. He doesn’t mind as much as he used to, and decides that there’s really nothing more to say, settling back in his chair to wait for Olivia and let Fin and Rollins get back to their work.

\-----------------

It’s really only barely warm enough for baseball, but there had been no dissuading José and Noah once the idea had been mentioned. Eddie had soft tossed a couple buckets of wiffle balls to each boy, and now they’re both scrambling around the outfield grass, racing to pick them up while Rafael and Eddie lean against the backstop.

The field is familiar, one that Rafael remembers from his childhood. He’d quit baseball as soon as his father let him, which was about four years after he probably should have given it up, but Eddie and Alex had played all the way up through high school, and he’d spent plenty of spring and summer evenings sitting in the stands with a book while they played. Alex had been alright, more athletic than particularly inclined towards the sport itself, but Eddie had been good, probably could have played in college if college had been something he’d been interested in.

Standing here, watching José and Noah running around on this field where he and Eddie used to play catch sometimes, it strikes him exactly how long he and Eddie have been friends, even if they haven’t always been as close as they were when they were young, even if the hole Alex left still occasionally gapes between them even as they’ve gotten some of that closeness back in the past year. He looks at the other man, watching their boys play, and thinks it with the clarity of a well-struck bell: _Eduardo Garcia, my oldest friend._

“I asked Liv to marry me. She said yes,” he says, and Eddie turns his grin towards him.

“Of course she did. Congratulations, hermano.” He reaches over and pulls him into a hug. “Am I invited to the wedding?”

“You, José, and your mom are all invited. Actually,” Rafael says, rubbing at the back of his neck, “I need groomsmen.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Of course.” _Eduardo Garcia, my oldest friend._

“I’d be honored, Rafi,” Eddie says, and Rafael knows he means it, and he also knows that he’s thinking about Alex, because he’s thinking about him too. About Alex, and Yelina, and how he was best man at their wedding, and how it has been more than five years since he’s spoken to either of them.

Somewhere, in a box in his Bronx apartment or in storage, there’s a photograph of the four of them, Yelina radiant in her dress, the three of them in their tuxes, arms around each other’s shoulders, laughing at the camera. He knows it’s somewhere, that he still has it, because a couple days after everything had happened that October, he’d had a few too many scotches and he’d pulled it off its place on his apartment wall and smashed the glass out of it in anger and hurt. And then a few days after that, he’d replaced the glass for reasons he doesn’t really understand, except that Alex was gone from him in that moment, but he’d been important in Rafael’s childhood, and he’d been important in that moment in the photograph, and in all the long years in between, and if he couldn’t hold onto Alex himself anymore, if Alex was no longer interested in holding onto him, then he could at least hold on to those moments.

Both of them are thinking about it, and so neither of them actually feels the need to talk about it, much to Rafael’s relief. Eddie settles against the backstop again, his grin softer now.

“You know, Rafi, for two kids from the South Bronx, we’ve done alright for ourselves. Not perfect, but pretty good.”

Rafael leans next to him, watching as José and Noah, having finally collected all the wiffle balls, run towards them, giggling, arms wrapped around the buckets. The sun is shining, and it’s just warm enough for baseball. His oldest friend is going to be a groomsman in his wedding. Olivia Benson has agreed to marry him.

“Yeah. Pretty good.”

\------------

“The dishwasher really does work very well.”

Rafael looks at her over his shoulder. “That’s good to hear, but we’re not going to use it today because…” he says, turning to Noah, who beams up at him like he’d just told the funniest joke he’d ever heard.

“It’s ridiculous to use the dishwasher for three plates and a casserole dish,” he crows. He’s standing on the little stool Rafael had bought for him after he’d started to insist on helping him wash the dishes in the evenings.

“Exactly, amigo. Your mom will catch on one of these days. Now, why don’t you go get started on your homework while I finish up, okay?”

“Okay.” He hops down from his stool, heading towards the living room. “Will you help me with my spelling, Dad?”

Three things happen at once. The plastic cup Noah had used at dinner clatters into the sink as it slips from Rafael’s fingers. Every muscle across his back goes tense. And Noah notices neither of the other two things, too busy pulling his homework out of his bag.

“Rafa,” Olivia says, stepping forward, but he shakes his head, a quick, sharp movement.

“I’m fine.” She can tell he’s having trouble controlling his breathing, inhales shaky and exhales heavy, but he shakes his head again. His knuckles are white where he’s gripping the counter, and she can tell he’s leaning too much weight there, like his knees have gone weak. “I’m fine. I just-” He manages one long breath, and then another, and then he bolts for their room, breathing ragged again.

Olivia sighs, wanting to go after him but knowing she needs to talk to Noah first, get him settled. He’s sitting at the coffee table, spelling sheet in front of him.

“Is Dad coming?” he asks, face bright and full of love and excitement. She remembers Rafael telling her about washing dishes with his mom one time when she’d teased him about not using the dishwasher, wonders if he’d told Noah about it, if that was what had inspired him.

“Why don’t you get started, and then...” She hesitates, because she can’t say _Uncle Rafa_ and take that look off his face, but she also can’t say _Dad_ , not with Rafael probably having a panic attack in her bedroom at this very moment. “Then I’ll come and help you, okay?”

She almost panics herself for a moment when she gets to the room and can’t see Rafael, until she hears his voice, very small.

“Here,” he says, and she turns to find him sitting on the floor at the door of her closet, legs sprawled out in front of him, one inside the closet and one out. Juez and Arabella are both with him, Juez stretched out on the floor, back pressed against his hip, and Arabella is curled up on his lap. Both of them are normally lazy, affectionate, happy, but right now they absolutely look ready to pounce in defense of Rafael.

 _Me too, you guys_ , she thinks as she squats down next to him. But there’s nowhere to pounce, not when the person who caused all this has been dead for years.

“I don’t even know why- I think I just wanted somewhere… small,” he says, glancing around the closet.

“That’s okay.” She wants to touch him but doesn’t. Olivia has only seen him this bad a few times, when he’s woken up from particularly terrible nightmares, but he always twitches away from being touched when he feels like this, when the scars his father left get dragged up to the surface, like his body can’t help but expect violence.

“S-Sorry. I don’t- I don’t- I’ll-”

“Shhh. It’s alright. Just breathe.” He scrubs at his face with both hands, but after a few minutes he does seem to be getting a little more control over his breathing. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know he was going to do that.”

“Not your fault. Or his. It’s not- I don’t- I didn’t even call him _Dad,_ I don’t know why-” He thumps his head back against the wall, and again, not particularly hard, but she still finally reaches out and touches him, threads her fingers into his hair so she can cradle the back of his head in her palm. “Fuck. _Fuck._ ”

“Hey, look at me. You’re allowed to feel however you feel, Rafa. I’ll talk to him.”

“No, I should do it. I’m the one who-” he sighs, leaning into her hand, eyes closed. When he opens them, they’re too bright, but his breathing is finally easing back to normal. She reaches out with her other hand to neaten his hair where his shaking has caused it to fall across his forehead. “We were supposed to have time to figure this out. We were supposed to have a plan.”

“I know.” She almost says _Welcome to parenthood_ , but she thinks that’s probably not what he needs right now, when there’s still an edge of panic in his eyes. “But I don’t think we’re going to figure it out tonight. So I’m going to go out and help him with his homework, and you can come out when you think you’re up to it, okay? Take your time.” She leans forward and presses a long kiss against his temple before running her hands over both cats. “You guys look after him,” she adds, which at least gets a small, soft chuckle from him.

It doesn’t take her long to realize that Noah has figured out that something is up, even if he doesn’t know exactly what, especially when Rafael doesn’t emerge from the bedroom, something she can’t blame him for. But Noah lets her help with his homework without complaining that Rafael is better at spelling, and he allows her to read him both his stories at bedtime, instead of his usual request that each of them read one.

Rafael is curled up on the bed in his pajamas when she gets back to the room, and he looks up at her with wide, sad eyes. Both cats are stretched out next to him.

“Sorry. I kept trying, I just- I kept getting to the door and panicking again, and I didn’t want him to see that.”

“It’s okay,” she says, pressing another kiss against his temple, “I should probably tell you that I’m pretty sure he’s figured out that something happened.”

He sighs, and she runs a hand through his hair before getting up to change into her own pajamas and turn off the lights. When she climbs into bed, she spoons up behind him, wrapping her arm around his waist and pressing a kiss against the back of his neck.

“Rafael?” she whispers, after a few minutes of silence, and he hums in response. “You know that’s what I want, right? For you to be Noah’s father? I’ve wanted that for a long time, probably since before anything between you and I was official. If that’s what you want, it’s what I want. And if it’s not, that’s okay too. Whatever Noah calls you, you will always have a place here in this family.”

He shifts under her arm to face her, and she can see how bright his eyes are even in the dark.

“It is what I want, Liv, I swear. He surprised me tonight, and I didn’t even know I was going to react like that. I’ve never been in a situation where I even had to think about how I’d react to that, and my fucking brain just- I want to be his dad. I swear I do. I love you, and I love Noah, and I want to be his dad.”

“Okay. We’ll figure it out then,” she says, cupping his cheek and running her thumb over his lower lip. “We’ll figure it out together.”

\-----------

He feels a little bit like he’s hungover, a headache behind his eyes and at the back of his skull. There’d been plenty of nightmares throughout the night, but nothing bad enough to wake him up, which he’s grateful for, especially because he can hear Olivia moving around the room, trying to be as quiet as she can, which means it must be pretty early.

“You got called in?” he asks, opening his eyes, and she turns from her dresser, comes to sit next to him on the bed.

“Yeah.” She considers him for a second. “I can call Lucy if you want, have her come pick him up and take him for the day. I know she’s available.”

He shakes his head immediately. “No, I can look after him. I want to talk to him. If he’s figured out that something was wrong last night, I don’t want him to think it’s his fault.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’ll be alright, Liv. It’s just talking. I’m good at that.”

The look on her face very clearly says _Not about this_ , but she takes pity on him and doesn’t actually say it.

“I’ll let you know as soon as I can when I think I’ll be done tonight. If you need to call me, or Lucy, or, I don’t know, your mother, don’t hesitate, okay? Remember that you’re allowed to feel whatever it is you’re feeling. And you can probably go back to sleep, he won’t be up for awhile.”

“Okay.” He doesn’t tell her that there’s no way he’s getting back to sleep without her there, because he thinks he’s probably been pathetic enough in the past twelve hours or so. “Love you.”

“Love you too. See you tonight.”

Rafael waits until he hears the front door close behind her before he gets up and pads out into the kitchen to start the coffee. Once he has a cup, he sits down in the living and tries to think how he’s possibly going to explain everything he needs to explain to a six-year-old. Noah is bright, but for all the drama that has found its way into his life already, nothing that he knows about could possibly have prepared him for this particular aspect of Rafael’s own boyhood. Compounding that is the fact that he’s well aware of how bad he is at discussing his own feelings, and how much worse he is when it comes to his relationship with his father.

But he’d managed it when Olivia had finally taken the leap and brought up their feelings for each other, and he can manage again for her son. Rafael briefly considers finding a notebook and jotting down some things, but you can’t really speak from notes in this situation. He’ll just have to try his best.

He actually manages to doze on the couch for awhile, half sleeping and half thinking about what he needs to say, waking up fully when he hears socked feet coming down the hall. Noah stops at the end of the couch, rubbing at his eyes. He’s wearing one of the Harvard t-shirts that Rita had got him for Christmas-- she’d shown up at dinner one evening in December with a whole set, crimson and black and white and grey, both long- and short-sleeved, and Devine had sent a Harvard sweatshirt that’s almost identical to the old one that Rafael has, which Noah had worn for a week straight-- and Rafael’s heart feels too big for his chest as he looks at him.

“Hey, amigo. You sleep okay?”

Noah shrugs, not really looking at him. “I’m hungry.”

“Okay. I’ll get you some cereal.” He almost offers to take him out for breakfast, as a treat and a way to stall for time, somewhere nice but kid-friendly, and let him order whatever he wants. But his head still aches from emotion and lack of sleep, and he definitely doesn’t want to have the conversation they need to have any place where anyone but Noah can see him.

“I’m gonna play with my Legos,” he says, still not looking at him, and Rafael barely holds in a sigh.

 _You can do this_ , he tells himself as he gets the milk out of the fridge, _You have to do this. For your family._

“Here you go,” he says, setting the bowl down in front of him.

“Thanks, Uncle Rafa,” Noah murmurs, and he’s glad he doesn’t have the bowl in his hands anymore because that drives straight into his solar plexus. It’s not fair, he thinks, that _Uncle Rafa_ , a designation he’d always loved right up until this moment, now feels like a whole set of knives lodged between his ribs, but _Dad_ feels like someone has reached into his chest and grabbed onto his lungs.

“I’m sorry I made you sad last night. I didn’t mean to,” he continues, and Rafael sits down next to him.

“Oh, Noah, that wasn’t your fault, alright? It wasn’t your fault even a little bit. I just-” He pulls a deep breath in, lets it out, then leans down closer to him. “Can I tell you a secret?”

There are very few people who know very many of the specifics of Rafael’s relationship with his father, and that number gets even smaller among the people who met him after he turned eighteen, after he left for Harvard and never spent another night in that apartment, even when he came home for holidays; it’s pretty much just Rita Calhoun, Devine Awaziem, and Olivia Benson. He’s sure there are others who suspect-- the various members of Liv’s squad who have worked with him, past and present, Elana Barth, a few others he’d worked with in the DA’s office, people who’ve encountered enough domestic violence in their professional lives that they can recognize the signs when they know someone well-- but Noah is about to join a pretty exclusive group here.

He nods, looking up at Rafael intently, and he takes another deep breath as he tries to figure out how to start.

“My papi… he wasn’t always a very nice man. Especially to Mami and me. He yelled at us a lot, and sometimes he hit us.”

“You’re not supposed to hit. ‘Specially kids,” Noah says, looking genuinely aghast, and Rafael wishes desperately that he didn’t have to be the person to introduce this concept into his world, and he wishes Olivia were here, and he’s incredibly glad she isn’t, because he doesn’t think he’d be able to handle the soft and sincere look he knows she’d be giving him right now on top of her son’s expression.

“That’s right, but my papi wasn’t very good at following that rule. And when I got older, I worried a lot that, because I didn’t have a very good dad, that I wouldn’t be a very good dad. That I wouldn’t know how to take care of my kids or make them happy or look out for them. I was really, really scared of being a bad dad, because I really, really wanted to be a good dad, so I wasn’t sure I really wanted to be a dad at all. And then I met your mom. And I met you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. You’re a pretty great kid, you know that?” Noah beams at the compliment, and scoots closer to Rafael on the couch. “So I met you, and I got to be your Uncle Rafa. I was so, so glad that I got to be in your life and watch you grow up. And when your mom and I- when we started-”

“When you started dating?” Noah says, rolling his eyes in a way that clearly says _Grown-ups._

“Yeah. Even before that, I knew I always wanted to be there for you, wanted to look out for you and make sure you were happy. And your mom and I, we’ve talked a lot about you, and us, and being a family. But yesterday, you surprised me and I-” He takes a moment to breathe and consider exactly what to say. “You know how sometimes you have nightmares?”

Noah nods. “Nightmares suck.”

Rafael laughs once before he can catch himself, then turns a stern look on him. “Don’t say suck. But, okay, sometimes adults, when bad things have happened to them, they sometimes kind of have nightmares when they’re awake, if something reminds them of the bad thing and they’re caught off guard. And since they’re already awake, they can’t wake up to stop the nightmare, so they just have to wait until it stops. That’s what happened to me, and why I didn’t come back out to help you with your homework.”

“That’s alright. Momma helped.”

“I know she did, but I’m still sorry. And I’m sorry I scared you. Because I was really scared, but I was also really happy.”

“Yeah?”

“Definitely,” he says, studying Noah’s face, “Do you have any questions?”

Noah considers this. “You’re still gonna marry Momma, aren’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Okay,” he says, turning back to his Legos, but Rafael has spent more than enough time around him by now to know he’s still got something on his mind.

“Noah. Do you want me to be your dad?”

Yesterday that had very much seemed to be the case, but he can’t be sure now. If he’d ruined that, even inadvertently, even with a reaction he couldn’t have hoped to control because he hadn’t known he was going to have it, he’s not sure how he’ll ever figure out how to forgive himself.

“Do you want to be my dad?” Noah asks, and it’s like Rafael can’t get enough air into his lungs again, but it’s not panic this time. His heart feels impossibly enormous in his chest and light at the same time, like it’s lifting his entire self. _So much held in a heart in a lifetime._

“Very much,” he says softly, putting as much feeling into it as he can manage around the lump in his throat, the immensity of his heart.

“‘Cause you love Momma and me?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” He turns back to his Legos, and then back to Rafael again. “Can I call you _Dad_ now? Or…”

“Of course you can. Yesterday was- I wasn’t-” His mouth works silently for a few moments as he tries to find more words to explain it, and then Noah surprises him by wrapping his arms around his neck.

“I’m sorry your dad was mean,” he says, as Rafael wraps his own arms around the boy’s back, “But I think you’ll be a good dad.”

It’s more than a few seconds before Rafael feels composed enough to lean back and look at his face.

“You think so?”

“Uh-huh. You explain stuff to me and you take me to the park and you let me wash the dishes with you and you tell me not to say suck.”

Rafael laughs again, and doesn’t stop himself until Noah is giggling too.

“Alright then.” He looks over Noah’s shoulder at the coffee table. “What do you think a good dad does when his kid’s cereal has gotten all soggy?”

Noah considers this. “Ice cream?”

Another laugh, more giggles. “I don’t think your mom would agree with that. How about this-- I’ll take you out for pancakes, and then we can go to the park, and maybe after lunch we can get ice cream. That sound good?”

“Sounds great, Dad.”

\-------------

She opens the door to the apartment, not quite sure what to expect. Rafael hadn’t texted her an _SOS_ at any point, but he’s not particularly good at asking for help, even when he thinks he might be out of his depth. _Especially_ when he’s out of his depth. Olivia has faith that he can handle talking to Noah, and that he would ask for help if he really needed it, but still. He’s proud, and she knows how badly he wanted today to go well.

What she sees when she reaches the living room stops her in her tracks.

Both of them are stretched out on the couch, asleep, Noah tucked underneath Rafael’s arm and sprawled out across his chest. They’re wearing their Harvard sweatshirts, the ones that almost match, and the only thing she can think is a phrase that Rafael quotes sometimes, from a poem he can offhandedly recite the entirety of almost without any thought at all, like he’s known it so well for so long that he doesn’t even have to reach for it in his memory, it’s just there.

 _The absurdity of love_. That’s what she feels right now, such an absurd amount of love that she feels both off-balance and grounded, standing there looking at them, feeling like she needs to do absurd things like glance down at her hands to see if she’s actually giving off light, because that’s how she feels, absurd and fond and like she might actually be glowing, here in her living room with her boys sleeping peacefully.

Eventually she moves to stow her gun and badge on top of a high bookshelf and hang her coat up. Her boots must make more noise than she thinks, or maybe he just senses her presence, because when she turns back to the coach, Rafael is watching, sleepy smile on his face.

“Hey.”

“Hi.” She crosses the room, and he helps her shift Noah up into her arms. Soon enough he’ll be too big for her to carry, and she wants to relish every opportunity she gets to hold him like this. “I’m just going to put him to bed.”

She reaches his room before she feels him stirring, lifting his head from her shoulder.

“Momma?”

“Hey, sweet boy. Do you need a story?” she asks, and he shakes his head as she pulls back his comforter and sets him on his bed.

“No, we already read a bunch.”

“Good. Did you have a good day with Uncle Rafa?”

“Yeah. He’s my dad now,” he says, burrowing into his pillow, and Olivia could not possibly, not in a thousand years, begin to put words to the feeling blossoming in her chest as she sits down next to him.

“Is he?”

“Yeah. ‘Cause he loves me.”

“Of course he does, honey. You guys talked today?”

“Yeah. He said that I should call him _Dad_ now because he wants to be my dad. Is that okay?” he asks, looking up at her, and she smiles, leaning down to press a kiss against his curls.

“It’s great, Noah. You can tell me all about it tomorrow,” she says, and he nods, tugging his blankets up to his chin. He’s asleep by the time she stops in the doorway to look back at him again, taking a few seconds just to watch him,

Rafael is still lying on the couch when she gets back to the living room, sleepy smile still in place when she sits down next to his hip.

“So,” she says, resting her hand over his heart, thumb running along the line of the chain his crucifix hangs from, “How was your first day of fatherhood?”

His grin lights up his entire face, and she can’t resist raising her hand to trace the curve of his bottom lip with her thumb.

“It was good. Great,” he says, and then hesitates for just a moment before adding, “We have a good kid.”

“We do.”

It’s a little difficult to kiss him when both of them are grinning, but they make it work.

\-------------

“So you’ve got Devine, Rita, and Eddie, and I’ve got the squad?”

“Mmmhmm.”

“We’re not even. That’s four men and two women.”

“We don’t have to do it by gender. I don’t think Rita would care, if you don’t think Fin and Carisi would.”

“You’ll break Carisi’s heart.”

“Liv, sometimes Carisi looks at you like you’re the shining beacon of justice that he’s always wanted. Like a kid with a superhero.”

She huffs. “I still think he likes you more.”

“Despite my best efforts. What?” he asks, because she’s got a weird look on her face.

“Nothing. Just… who is coming to this wedding except for the six people in the wedding party, your mother, and Noah?”

Rafael laughs. “Plenty of people. Munch and Cragen and Amaro will all want to come. Tommy and the Zhangs. Devine is bringing his parents. There’s a few people left from the Bronx who don’t hate me who will want to come, including Mrs. Garcia and José. Carmen, Melinda. Maybe some people from the DA’s office. Elana, maybe, although she was pretty pissed at me for a lot of reasons when I left, and I haven’t really talked to her since I got back.” It’s Olivia’s turn to laugh, although it doesn’t sound that humorous. “What?”

“Nothing. Just… do we need more friends?” she says, and then immediately laughs again, this one brighter, and buries her face in his shoulder, “God, that was embarrassingly high school.”

“You think we don’t have enough friends?”

“I don’t know. It seems like pretty much everyone coming to our wedding are people we know from work. Or people’s mothers.”

“Well, I’m very popular with a certain demographic.”

“People with mothers?” He shrugs, turning his best shit eating grin at her. “That’s some real ‘no man of woman born’ shit, Barba. What?” she asks in response to the look on his face, “ _My_ mother was an English professor.”

“It’s just very sexy when you quote Shakespeare at me.” She pinches at the skin along his jaw in retaliation until he catches her hand in his larger one and presses a kiss to the back of it. “Liv, honey, you should be incredibly proud of the life you’ve built for yourself. Of the family you’ve made.”

She swallows hard as he presses another kiss against the soft skin of her wrist. “You keep going all sappy on me with no warning, Barba.”

“Think you can put up with it for the rest of your life? Because I’ve got no plans to stop.”

Olivia stretches to press her own kiss against the skin she’d pinched a minute ago.

“Yeah. I think that could be the kind of life I’d like for myself.”

\-----------

“Momma! Dad! Look, Tommy and I match!” Noah says, pointing at his own gray Harvard t-shirt and the black Harvard Law one that Tommy is wearing. It had been a gift from Rafael when he’d gotten his acceptance letter, which is now proudly displayed on the Zhangs’ refrigerator. There’s a whole collection of them, but the Harvard one has pride of place right in the center.

“That’s very cool! Thanks for watching him, Tommy,” Olivia says, hugging Noah as he runs over to her.

“It’s no problem. Have to watch the littles anyway,” he responds, nodding across the landing, where Rafael can see Tommy’s younger brother and sisters working at the kitchen table. “We used the time very well too. You ready to show off, péngyǒu?”

“Yeah, amigo!” Noah says, bouncing with excitement. Olivia turns to Rafael with raised eyebrows, although he suspects he knows where this is going.

Tommy points at Olivia. “That’s your-”

“Mǔqīn!”

“And her job is?”

“Jǐngguān!”

“And him?”

“Lǜshī! That’s what you always call him.”

“Good job. And he’s your-”

“Fùqīn!”

Rafael feels his throat get tight, because even without context he can recognize that one. He’s eaten enough dinners with the Zhangs, spent enough time at their bodega to recognize the word he’s occasionally heard Tommy and his siblings use in reference to their father.

“Tommy, how do you say son in Mandarin?” he asks.

“Érzi.”

“Érzi,” Rafael repeats, looking at Noah, who grins back.

“Come on, lǜshī. You know the exchange rate. Noah’s already taught me lots of good ones. I know how to say squirrel in Spanish now.”

“Ardilla!” Noah crows, with an exaggerated rolling _r_ , like it’s a battle cry.

“Son in spanish is hijo. Or mijo, for my son.”

“Mijo,” Tommy repeats, then drops his voice to a comically low register, “The prophecy is now complete.” They all laugh, even Olivia and Noah, who at most have a vague idea what he’s talking about.

“She’d be proud of you,” Rafael says, and Tommy pushes himself up from the couch.

“She’d be proud of you, too.” He claps Rafael on the back. “You guys want to stay for dinner? Mom will be home soon.”

Rafael turns to check with Olivia, but before she can say anything, Noah pretty much answers for them.

“How do you say dinner in Mandarin?”

\------------

“Waiting for your lieutenant?”

Rafael rolls his eyes as Elana settles into the chair next to him at the bar. She’s been referring to Olivia as _your lieutenant_ since back when it was _your sergeant_.

“Yes.”

“I heard you got engaged. Congratulations.”

“Thank you.”

“I also heard you got a job offer.” He resists the urge to roll his eyes again. At this rate, the entire justice system of New York City will have heard about it soon, and most of them will have some opinion he’s sure. Elana Barth’s is one of the few he might actually care about. “Do I owe you congratulations on that too?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re not taking the job?”

“I don’t know if I’m not taking the job. It’s a big decision.” He still wants it with a pull in his gut that feels like it could physically move him through space. He’s still so terrified he sometimes can barely fight back nausea. “What?” he asks, because Elana is looking at him strangely, sad but also somehow defensive.

“I wasn’t wrong to read you the riot act after you caused that mistrial.”

“I’ve never thought or so much as implied to a single other person that you were. You can ask Liv when she gets here, if you want.” He furrows his brow, trying to figure out why she would bring that up out of the blue like that. “Have you thought for more than a year that you yelling at me for doing something stupid and wrong in your courtroom-- which I should point out is pretty much literally your job-- was what caused me to resign and flee the city?”

“Thought it might have been part of it. Heard you went to Arizona.” He nods, assuming Rita had told her. “Pretty there. Dolores and I have taken the kids to the Grand Canyon a couple times, when we embark on the Great American Road Trip to see her brothers and sisters near Las Cruces sometimes.”

Elana is from northern Wisconsin, and her wife Dolores is from southern New Mexico. They’ve each got about nine brothers and sisters, and three kids together, the youngest of whom can’t be much older than Noah. Dolores is an architect. They have been, for pretty much the entirety of Rafael’s adult life, his model for a good, strong, loving marriage.

“It was nice. I have a friend from Harvard who lives there now, invited me to stay. Otherwise I might have gone anywhere. Or nowhere. It was… it was a lot of things, and then that case and the trial and… maybe I needed a break.”

“Break over?”

“I still don’t know anything more than I did a few minutes ago.”

“That’s pretty surprising coming from the man who didn’t talk to me for a month after I accepted an appointment to a very prestigious judgeship.”

“I’ve been told I’m kind of a jackass.” He’d been overjoyed and proud, but he’d also felt like he was being left behind, and he spent that month leaning into the wrong half of those feelings.

“You? The man who communicated with Rita Calhoun, one of your best friends, only through extremely terse text messages for three months after she left the DA’s office?”

“At least you left for something bigger. A higher calling. Rita left to be a defense attorney.”

“An effective justice system needs good defense attorneys too,” she says, and he scoffs, even though objectively he agrees with her. He’s mostly forgiven Rita for that anyway, because she’s Rita, and when it comes right down to it he’d forgive her for most things, and even if she’d never say it, he knows she’d do the same for him.

“Yeah, well, now I know that not everyone can do that job forever. Turns out I couldn’t do it either.”

“Wouldn’t count yourself out yet. You’ve got that job offer.”

“That I don’t know what to do with.”

“I really did think, of all the dedicated people we worked with in that building, that you were the one who’d make it all the way. You’d get old, and you’d win some big important case, and then you’d go back to your office, pleased with yourself, and die right there at your desk, so you could get one last victorious trip down those big stairs, even after you’d shuffled off this mortal coil.”

He laughs. “That doesn’t sound like such a bad death. But it doesn’t sound like the best one either.”

“You know, there was one evening, a couple of years before I joined the bench. We were working late, and you were a little bit drunk, and sad-- you’d just broken up with that idiot boyfriend of yours, the one that Dolores hated.”

“Dolores hated everyone I dated back then.”

“She likes Olivia,” Elana says, and he doesn’t bother asking how Dolores knows of Olivia. He thinks everyone should know about Olivia Benson, and the fact that Dolores, who he adores, does just seems right. “Anyway, you told me that night that you couldn’t imagine your life without that job. Didn’t know what you’d do with yourself.”

“This has been a really fun trip down memory lane about me being a pathetic jackass, Elana. I’m glad we ran into each other.”

“The point I’m trying to make,” she says, reaching over to tap at the ring finger of his left hand, where in a few weeks he’ll have a wedding band, “Is that I suspect that isn’t the case anymore.”

Rafael smiles. “No. It’s not. The past few years or so I’ve figured out that there’s plenty of things in my life that aren’t that job.”

“And that’s good.”

“Because it means I can turn the job down?”

“Because it means you can figure out whether or not you want to turn the job down without it being life and death.”

“Huh.”

She laughs. “Thank God I came along or you might never have managed to get yourself employed again.”

“I should have been taking advice from you instead of Rita all these years.”

“You should listen to Rita too.” She laughs again, shaking her head a few times before grinning at him. “So, marriage. A wedding for Rafael Barba. You have anybody to officiate the ceremony yet?”

He returns her grin, and she orders a drink, and they talk while he waits for Olivia. It’s almost like old times, and also not at all. Rafael doesn’t mind. He likes the times he’s got just fine.

\--------------

“ _In all the works of Beethoven, you will not find a single lie._ ”

Olivia really does like when he recites poetry, although she likes it less when he does it like this, spouts out a line that she can’t really understand without context because she doesn’t know the poem. She looks up from her book at Rafael, tilting her head for a few seconds to listen to the soft music playing. It doesn’t sound like any Beethoven she knows, but she doesn’t have his ear for music.

“That’s nice. What’s it from?”

“Mary Oliver. Leaves and Blossoms Along the Way.”

“Any particular reason you were thinking of it?”

“There’s a line in the first stanza. Or two lines, I guess. _Try to find the right place for yourself. If you can’t find it, at least dream of it._ ”

Olivia considers that for a few seconds, and the look on his face, and then all at once it hits her what he’s trying to say. She sits up, closes her book.

“You’re going to take the job.” He nods. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah, I am. I wasn’t for a long time, and I want you to know that if it comes down to it, my right place is here with you and Noah, and I never could have dreamed of it. But I think that’s my right place too. I want to be in the fight, Liv, your fight and mine. If I can’t be by your side anymore in it, I can at least be adjacent. I know there are lots of ways to fight, but this is mine. This is the one I’m good at. _For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required._ ” She raises her eyebrows. “Luke 12:48, I think?”

“You think pretty highly of yourself.”

“You know that with great power comes great responsibility,” he responds, and she laughs, pulling him closer to her. He comes easily.

“You’ve been spending too much time with Noah.”

“I think I’ve been spending the exact right amount of time with Noah.”

She touches her fingertips to the curve of his ear. “I’m glad you came back, you know? Not just because-” She is once again lost for words when trying to make him understand what he means to her, wishes she had his gift for them, or at least his well of quotations to draw from. “I’m glad you’re in my life, Rafa. I wouldn’t want you anywhere else.”

He grins at her, this man who fought and will fight again, with his words and his good heart, who she loves so much, who is here in her arms, and _hers_.

\-----------

“Dad, Uncle Zoom is here!”

“Uncle Zoom?” Rafael asks, looking at Devine, who is sitting at the kitchen counter. The wedding is in a week, and he and his parents had flown in that day. Olivia and Noah had picked them up and dropped Mr. and Mrs. Awaziem off at their hotel because Rafael had been in meetings all day.

“Noah and his mom and I had a discussion, and we decided that if his mom’s friends get to be called aunt and uncle, and you’re his dad, then your friends get to be aunts and uncles too.”

“They had a very intense discussion about it and decided that Uncle Zoom is cooler than Uncle Dev,” Olivia says from the kitchen.

“Oh, definitely. I’m thinking of having it legally changed. On a related note, I am going to need you to call Rita and tell her whatever it takes to get her to come over, because I have to make absolutely sure I’m physically present the first time he calls her Aunt Rita.”

“I think maybe we should continue to call her Ms. Rita until we ask her if she minds being called anything else,” Olivia says, and both Devine and Noah look a little bit like she’d just canceled Christmas. “Noah, come help me with this, let your dad and Uncle Zoom say hello.”

They pull each other into a hug, grinning and slapping each other’s backs, and Rafael doesn’t know how Devine has lived his whole life with so many limbs. He’s all arms and legs and elbows like stiletto knives, but Rafael is mostly just glad he’s here, close enough to hug, and to catch him in the ribs with those elbows.

“How are you?”

“Excellent. Really enjoying being Uncle Zoom. Mom and Dad are excited to see you. Say you should come visit sometime, offered to take Noah to Henry Doorly.”

“What’s that?” Noah asks, shamelessly eavesdropping.

“It’s the best zoo in the world, buddy,” Devine says over his shoulder before turning back to him, “And how are you? Other than newly employed and almost married?”

“Great. Everything’s great,” he responds, and then he can’t help the urge to say “Thank you.” He’s said it probably a couple dozen times by now, by text and over the phone and when Devine was here last, but it suddenly feels necessary to say it right now in this moment, when everything is great. “If you hadn’t called that day in February, I’m not sure what I would have done. I’m not sure if I’d have any of this.”

“You’d of figured it out eventually. You’re tough as hell, Rafa. Always been one of my favorite things about you. Might have taken you a bit longer to get up off the mat this time, but you made it eventually. Knew you would.”

“Helped to have a guest room in Phoenix to run to.”

“Outside of Phoenix, please, Rafa.”

They hug again, both tighter and softer this time, and they don’t let go until Rafael feels Noah tugging on his jacket.

“Everything okay, Dad?”

“Yeah. Didn’t you hear? Everything’s great,” he teases, then leans down so he can stage-whisper, “I love your Uncle Zoom and I’m glad he’s here, but don’t tell him I said that.”

Noah is clearly delighted to be let in on the secret, but equally as delighted to turn towards Devine and try to communicate what had been said to him through his expression alone. Devine laughs and gestures him closer, squatting down to whisper to him.

“I think he heard you because he says he loves you too and he’s glad to be here in the Big Apple with you.” Message delivered, he turns back to Devine. “What animals do they have at Henry Doorly?”

Rafael leaves the two of them to discuss the merits of various zoos.

\------------

This is his bachelor party, he supposes, which he thinks might be sort of sad, but he’s enjoying himself, and that’s what really matters. It’s two days until the wedding, and there’s a big dinner tomorrow at Forlini’s, at Carisi’s insistence-- his mother and Noah, the wedding party and their families, Elana and hers.

But tonight it’s just him and Rita and Devine, sitting in her apartment and drinking shitty beer, the kind they would have bought in college, when they had no money and no taste. He’s not quite sure how they came to be drinking the shitty beer, because he-- who the party was for-- and Rita-- who was hosting the party-- had both vetoed Devine’s suggestion of it, but now that he’s lying on Rita’s ridiculously comfortable couch, nursing his third beer and watching the two of them talk, he doesn’t mind so much.

“I don’t like New York City.”

“You don’t like any cities,” Rita replies, “It’s not New York’s fault that you grew up in an empty pasture next to an enormous strip club in a barn. Plus you’ve voluntarily lived in Phoenix for decades now, which has about 2 million more people than your entire fucking home state.”

“One, outside of Phoenix, thank you very much. Two-A, it’s not a barn, the strip club is in a normal very large, bright pink building and no one lives next to it. Two-B, the fact that that’s all the two of you can ever remember about my hometown is concerning. Three, Nebraska is a perfectly lovely place to grow up. Beautiful. Wide open.”

“Boring and flat and empty.”

“ _I think heroic deeds were all conceived in the open air, and all free poems also, I think I could stop here myself and do miracles._ ”

“You’re almost as pretentious as he is,” Rita says, gesturing to Rafael with her beer bottle, and he raises his own in recognition but doesn’t say anything. Rita’s couch really is insanely comfortable.

“Says the woman with the Shakespeare quote hanging above her sink.”

“It’s his sign,” she says, pointing at Rafael again, “I just kept it because it goes with the decor.”

It’s so blatantly false that Devine clearly can’t even come up with a response, and Rafael laughs, feeling fond and a little bit drunk.

“What, Barba? Some comment about my interior decorating choices?”

If this had happened ten years ago, if he’d met someone and gotten married, this would have been happening in a bar in the South Bronx. Alex would have been there, his best man, and Eddie, and maybe Yelina too, and a bunch of guys from the neighborhood who he liked but hadn’t made any real effort to keep in touch with.

And things probably would have happened just the same, all those hypothetical memories obscured by Alex’s betrayal, but he doesn’t have to worry about that now, because he’s drinking shitty beer in Rita’s apartment with her and Devine, and Eddie has promised to stop by later for a drink or two after he’s gotten José and his mother settled for the evening.

Because he trusts them, is really the heart of it. Trusts that they will not stain his memories of them dark around the edges like Alex and Yelina had, still good at the heart but the specter of what he knows now always lingering. He trusts so many people now, more than he ever could have imagined not all that long ago, their strings tied up into his soul, and the welcome stretch of valuing and being valued, of knowing he has a place in that tangle, is the exact opposite of the way he still feels some days when he thinks of Alex and Yelina. Those days feel like a brick shoved up between his lungs when he thinks too hard about all of it, but this feeling is all the space to breathe he could want, massive rolling prairies of it, a place where he can stop and perform miracles of love and trust

“No,” he says, when he realizes they’re still waiting for his answer, “I’m just glad you guys are here.”

“I live here, dumbass.”

“No, not here. _Here_ ,” he says, gesturing in an attempt to encompass all of it, “I’m glad you guys are here, with me, for my wedding. I love you guys.”

“Shitty beer and now Barba’s being gross, this is the worst bachelor party ever.”

“I don’t think it’s too bad,” Devine says, and he’s smiling but Rafael can see that his eyes are a little glassy too, and he grins back.

Devine Awaziem, who offered up his guest room with no questions asked. Devine Awaziem, who sat next to him in class freshman year because their professor had trouble with names and made them sit in alphabetical order. Devine Awaziem, the best and perhaps only gift his father’s name had ever given him.

“I guess it’s okay. Barba can keep being gross if he wants, since it’s his party, but I can at least do something about the crap beer. I’m getting wine,” Rita says, and Rafael has known her long enough to know she’s fighting a smile of her own as she gets up.

He shifts on the couch to watch her move around the kitchen, retrieving the wine and three glasses, tracing one finger just along the edge of the sign hanging over her sink.

\--------------

“Hey, Lieu, everything still good for tonight?”

She looks up at Carisi over her glasses. “Unless you know something I don’t.”

“No, no, everything’s great. Just want to make sure.”

“Carisi, you know the wedding, the important thing, isn’t until tomorrow, right?” she asks, smiling at the flutter in her stomach. _The wedding. Tomorrow._

“Yeah, of course. I just, you know, organizing this and getting everybody to chip in is my gift to you guys, and my way of saying thanks, so I want everything to be good and I don’t want you guys to have to worry about anything.”

“Your way of saying thanks?”

“For including me. I mean, you and Fin, you go way back, and you and Amanda, you’ve got, you know, uh-”

“Girl stuff?”

“Yeah, but like, not dismissively. Deep girl stuff. And I just wanted to let you how honored I am that you asked me too.”

“Carisi, if I hadn’t asked you, Rafael would have.” His face lights up like she’s just made his year, and she’ll hear about that later from Rafael she’s sure, but it’s pretty much worth it. _The shining beacon of justice that he’s always wanted. Like a kid with a superhero._ “It hasn’t always been smooth sailing, but you’ve been a part of this family pretty much since you walked in here with that dumb mustache,” she says, and then worries she’s overstepped, “I know you’ve got plenty of family of your own, but you’ve always got a place here too.”

He grins. “Could always use a little more family, yeah? I’ll see you tonight.”

“See you, Carisi, and thanks again, for organizing everything.”

Olivia watches him walk back out of her office, stopping at Amanda’s desk to say something that makes her laugh, thinks about all those years she spent wanting somewhere to belong, and about how now there are people here who thank her for including them in her family, who have found that place with her. Maybe Rafael was right when he said this was something she could be proud of.

\------------

“I’m glad he found you.”

Rita sets her drink down next to Olivia’s on the bar. They’ve been finished with dinner for a while now, but no one really wants to leave yet, and they’re spread out across Forlini’s now in groups of three or four, talking, enjoying each other’s company and the celebratory mood. Rafael is tucked into the corner of a booth with Eddie and Devine, Noah sitting on his lap, obviously fighting sleep.

“I mean it. I’m trying to figure out how to say this without making him sound pathetic, because he wasn’t. It was just life. But there was this stretch of time, from about when Elana and I left the DA’s office to when he got his transfer to Manhattan, give or take a few years on either side, where he got really good at doing things that made him happy and really crappy at actually being happy. The yacht parties and the expensive scotch and winning cases made him happy, but he wasn’t happy, not outside of those things. But you make him happy, as pretty much his base state of being. Even before the two of you decided to finally let the soft animals of your bodies love what you love.”

Olivia actually has to fight a blush at that particular phrasing, which hadn’t sounded nearly as tawdry as Rita makes it sound when Rafael had shown her the actual poem.

“He makes me happy too. And I’ve been meaning to thank you, actually. Devine told me you called him after the trial, about… about how much trouble Rafael was having.”

“I mostly did that to vent honestly, to someone who has experienced as much of Rafael Barba’s particular brand of idiocy as I have, and I wanted to be able to use some language that I just don’t feel comfortable using with Lucia. But yeah, I thought some exposure to the human ray of sunshine might be good for him. Payback for a few of the times he looked out for me in the past.” Rita doesn’t elaborate, and Olivia doesn’t ask. “Maybe someday I’ll be able to forgive him for not letting me defend him in court.”

“He didn’t want to drag anyone down with him, I don’t think. Especially not you.”

“Sounds like him. The thing about Rafael Barba is he’s built himself some big fucking walls, but they’ve got a bunch of spots that are held together only by spit and the hope that nobody will kick particularly hard at them. But once you’re in, that’s pretty much that. You’ve got to fuck up pretty badly before he lets you back out.” She laughs. “You kicked through about six places all at once. I have to say I like all this-” She gestures around them with her wine glass. “A lot more than I did all the years he spent pining and mooning and moping and whatnot. You played a big part in that too.”

“He did a lot of that work himself.” Rafael didn’t have to let any of them in, even if they had busted through his walls. He could have run away from all of them, from Eddie to Devine and Rita to the squad to her and Noah, and he hadn’t, or at least he’d always come back, and that was all his own doing.

“Loathe as I am to give Barba any credit.” Rita takes a long drink of her wine. “I was talking to the kid earlier. He’s pretty bright.”

“Yeah, he’s great.” Olivia looks over to where Rafael and Noah are still sitting. Noah has his head tipped back and is talking up at him, and Rafael is nodding along, although the smile threatening at the corners of his mouth makes her think that Noah is probably too tired to make any sense and Rafael is just humoring him.

“If his heart was really set on calling me Aunt Rita, I could probably figure out a way to be okay with that.”

Olivia raises her eyebrows. “Are Rafa and Dev giving you a hard time? Because-”

Rita waves her off. “No. Well, they are, but those two love teaming up to pester me. If they weren’t giving me grief about this it would be something else.” She rolls the stem of her wine glass between her fingers for a few moments. “Did you know that I was adopted?”

“I didn’t. Rafael never said.”

“Mmmm. Only child. Those two idiots,” she says, nodding back towards Rafael and Devine, and there’s so much fondness packed into that single word that Olivia has to fight the urge to look away, like she’s witnessing something private, “Are the closest things to brothers I’ve got. Might be nice to have a nephew, even it’s just an honorary one.”

“He’d love that. He tries to wear one of the shirts you got him pretty much every day, which is impressive considering none of them have dinosaurs on them.”

“I could maybe look into that.”

And it’s bizarre, of course it is, to be talking like this with Rita, but not outrageously so, to her surprise. She’s still a defense attorney, and Olivia doesn’t have the decades of friendship that Rafael does to help overcome that, but she knows enough by now to know that Rita does have a soul, and beyond that, this is part of the whole marriage thing, isn’t it? If Olivia can be proud of the family she’s built, than surely so can Rafael, all of them gathered here together, and again tomorrow, even more of them, the people who love them, to celebrate.

\-----------

He’s almost ready, still in just his socks, tie loose and the top button of his shirt undone, when he answers the knock at his door.

“Mami, do you need something?”

“Can’t a mother see her son before his wedding?” she asks, as he steps aside to let her into the little room he’s dressing in. “Aren’t you supposed to have groomsmen? And a groomswoman?”

“They’re… somewhere.” Knowing Rita and Devine, they’re probably off doing something that will cause him grief later, and he can only hope that Eddie is being a good influence. “Mami, I should tell you- I’ve been meaning to, but everything has been so crazy. I took the job with the DA’s office.”

She sighs. “I knew you would.”

“And you tried to convince me not to anyway?”

“You’ve got plenty of years coming where you’ll learn that telling your children not to do things you know they’re going to do anyway is a big part of parenting. Promise me one thing?”

“I’ve already made you several promises.”

“And what did I say when you pointed that out before?”

“What is it?”

“You have to promise that if you’re going to do this job, you’ll do your best. No,” she says, holding up her hand when he opens his mouth, “I know you’ll work hard, you always have, ever since you were little. But you have to promise me you’ll fight like you used to, when you worked with Olivia. I know you’re scared, that what happened before will happen again, but… you have such a good heart, Rafi.” She rests her hand against his chest and he grips it with one of his own without even thinking about it. “It’s your best weapon, and don’t you dare hide that good heart away again. Not when so many of us, including you, put in so much work to chip it out of the places you liked to hide it.”

“I promise, Ma.”

“Good.” She pulls her hand free from his so that she can skim the backs of her fingers down the line of his jaw. “I’ve always been so proud of you. I probably haven’t said it nearly enough, but I have always been so, so proud of you, mi niño. My brave and brilliant boy. Full of light, and so much love.”

“Mami…” His voice is tight, and he’s blinking rapidly.

“I know, I know. But if I can’t say these things to my son on his wedding day, when can I say them?”

Rafael swallows hard. “Whenever you want, Ma.”

“Yeah? Alright then, I’ll leave you to finish getting ready.”

“Mami,” he says, before she can reach the door, and she turns back to him with eyebrows raised, “Help me with my tie?”

She scoffs. “Now you’re just humoring your old mother.”

“If I can’t do it on her son’s wedding day, when can I?” He holds out the two halves of the tie, and tips his chin up when she steps forward to take them.

\-------------

It’s not that she doesn’t want to remember the whole of the ceremony. Of course she does. It’s just that she already knows which moments and feelings she’ll reach back for in the coming days, months, years. For the rest of her life.

The tremendous brightness of a slightly slack-jawed Rafael’s eyes as he watched her walk down the aisle toward him, Devine reaching forward from his spot right next to him to grip his shoulder. Noah beaming up at her as he walked her down the aisle. The sure and steady tone of Rafael’s voice as he said his vows, and the warmth of his hands on hers as he slid her wedding band into place and she did the same for him. That first moment turning to look at their guests with his fingers entwined with hers, husband and wife.

But this moment, she wants to remember every single detail about. The lights and the music and so many of the people she loves spread out around them, and Rafael Barba, her husband, in her arms, so close that they have to take care as they sway not to end up on each other’s feet. The softness of the hair at his nape underneath her fingers, the breadth of his shoulders, the way she can feel him grinning against her cheek.

“We got married,” he whispers, and she laughs, full of joy and affection, “We’re married now.”

“Thoughts so far?”

“Oh, I’m a huge fan. Rave reviews.”

“Hey,” she says, and he hums in response but doesn’t shift, and she tugs a little on the hair under her fingers so that he’ll lean back and meet her eyes. When he does, she says, “I love you so much. I’m going to be in love with you for the rest of my life, Rafael Barba.”

“ _So much held in a heart in a lifetime_. _Shall we stick by each other as long as we live_?” He laughs, the sound of it bright and impossibly dear to her ears. “I love you so much I don’t have the words, Olivia Benson.”

She kisses him for a bit, and when they finally break apart, Rafael glances over her shoulder and laughs again. Olivia twists enough to see Noah, sitting on Lucia’s lap, watching them intently, leaning forward just slightly, practically vibrating.

“I think we’d better let him join us before he hurts himself,” Rafael whispers, and Olivia nods, stepping back from him to wave at Noah, who takes off running towards them immediately.

Another moment she wants to remember every detail of forever: her son running towards her, her husband next to her, laughing.

\---------------

They’re on the couch, Olivia leaning against Rafael, Noah on the floor in front of them, watching Disney’s Robin Hood. Noah’s got an old plastic coat hanger he’s using as a bow to act out the scenes, and Rafael is half watching the movie and half watching him.

Noah had stayed over at Amanda’s the night of the wedding so that Olivia and Rafael could have the apartment to themselves for one night, and now they’re spending a few days together as a family before the two of them leave for their honeymoon next week. Olivia is looking forward to it, but for now she’s more than content to sit on the couch and flip through photos from the reception.

Rafael and Devine dancing, hands clasped, Rafael’s arm around Devine’s waist and Devine’s around his shoulders, both of them laughing, leaning into each other for support.

The two of them with Rita, the table and ground around Devine littered with peanuts that he hasn’t managed to catch with his mouth. Devine reaching out to shove at Rafael, who had caught nineteen straight tosses from Rita to the amusement of their guests.

Herself at an otherwise empty table with Fin, his arm around the back of her chair as she leaned into his shoulder.

Carisi with Jesse on his shoulders and Noah standing on his shoes, one hand holding on to each of them as they danced.

Nick, favoring his good leg, clear even in the photo, holding up one finger as he finally moved out onto the dance floor at her request. He’d stayed for three dances, including a fast one, even though he had to lean on Munch just a little to get back to his table afterwards.

Rafael and Eddie talking over their sons’ heads, Noah and José bent over the baseball cards José had brought along.

One that must have been taken right after Noah had come running onto the dance floor towards them, when she’d scooped him up into her arms. He’s got his arms wrapped around her neck, and they’re both grinning at each other. Rafael has one hand on her back and one on Noah’s, head tossed back as he laughs.

That one is her favorite, and she turns to look up at her husband.

“Rafa?” she says, pressing a kiss against the warm skin beneath his ear.

“Hmm?”

“I’m glad I accepted your proposal instead of Rita’s.”

She expects him to tease back, but he just looks at her, eyes green and deep and full of so much love that for a moment she swears she can feel it pressing against her skin.

“Me too. How about you, Noah? Are you glad your mom married me instead of Rita?”

“Yeah. Because now Juez and Bella are my cats too. Aunt Rita doesn’t have any cats.”

One of the cats, both of them having escaped to the kitchen to avoid Noah’s play acting archery, meows.

“It’s unanimous,” Rafael says, and Olivia can only lean up and kiss him, out of words, her own or anyone else’s, to tell him how happy she is to be here with him in this moment.

**Author's Note:**

> Haha, remember when I said I wasn't sure if I'd ever write more Barson at all, let alone a sequel to 'even stars' and then I wrote a 20k word sequel like two months later? That was truly crazy. I hope this lives up both to 'even stars' and to your expectations of the sequel, or at least I hope you all don't regret asking me to write more Barson. There are some parts of this that I'm incredibly proud of and others that I'm less sure on, but I'm learning to be better about letting my writing be what it is, and while it is far less introspective than 'even stars,' I think it continues some of its themes and fills in some of its gaps, and if you don't enjoy this, then I think you can just re-read 'even stars' and ignore the existence of this one. If you made a request for something at any point, I tried to get them all in here, but if I missed it it is not because I don't like you, it's because I'm dumb and forgot or I just couldn't figure out how to fit it in.
> 
> All the poetry quoted is repeated from 'even stars,' with the exception of the Bible verse, which is the KJV version of Luke 12:48, and Mary Oliver's "Leaves and Blossoms Along The Way." There's obviously far less of it in this than in the previous fic, but again, I was trying to do something slightly different than 'even stars' while still having the two be clearly connected.
> 
> I quadruple checked all the Mandarin that Tommy teaches Noah, but while I can speak at least a passable amount of Spanish, I have no basis for Mandarin at all. The spellings are all in Pinyin, and in the case where there was more than one word for something, I went with the more verbally distinct one, since Tommy is mostly just teaching Noah vocabulary and not how to really speak it. If you notice a glaring mistake there, please let me know and I'll correct it.
> 
> As for music, you can still find my Barson playlist [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6MYYTMxD7SN1NhoKC0G7iL), where I've added 6-7 more songs since publishing 'even stars,' and will continue to add songs for the foreseeable future. I also still think that [Penny and Sparrow](https://open.spotify.com/artist/65o6y7GtoXzchyiJB3r9Ur) as a whole is a very good thematic sound for Barson and particularly this fic and 'even stars.' In my head, their first dance is to [Stand By Me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwZNL7QVJjE) by Ben E. King, but feel free to imagine whatever song you want there, I left the name out of the fic intentionally for that reason.
> 
> As far as this particular series goes, and I know I've said this before, but I think that this is probably it. I feel good about where it leaves the characters, and while the muse may kick up something someday, for now, this is complete. That absolutely doesn't mean that I won't be writing more Barson, since as of this moment I have five different AUs that I'm interested in writing, and odds are good that at least a few of those, and maybe all of them, will become full-fledged fics.
> 
> Again, shoutout to all of you for your immense suspension of disbelief about so much of this. Questions, comments? Leave them here, or you can come talk to me on tumblr at [awkwardspiritanimals](awkwardspiritanimals.tumblr.com) or on twitter (where I do most of my talking/yelling about Barson) [@awkspiritanimal](twitter.com/awkspiritanimal).


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